When the offer on your home is accepted, you’ll start the process of securing the mortgage for your home. Lenders will give you the option to lock or float your mortgage rate prior to closing (which typically happens 30 days after the offer is accepted).
“Locking” your mortgage means that you and your lender have agreed on an interest rate and price for your home loan. Once your loan is locked, that’s the rate and price you get, regardless of what happens in the financial markets. If rates go up, you’re protected; but if rates go down, you won’t benefit either — you close your loan at the rate you’ve locked and you can’t change it. Locks have expiration dates ranging from 30 to 60 days or more, and the longer your lock period, the more it costs. If you don’t close your loan on time, you could end up paying a higher interest rate.
Every day, LendingTree posts our recommendation (below) on whether you should lock or float your rate, so make sure to check back here prior to making your decision.
Once again, mortgage rates might hold steady today, or perhaps just inch either side of the neutral line. However, that forecast is based on early market trends, and those frequently change speed or direction during the day. So a sharper fall or rise remains possible. Still, if we were currently buying a home, we would float our rate now, and revisit that decision tomorrow morning. Read on to discover why you might prefer to float.
Our prediction could be undermined in coming hours by any economic, political, and geopolitical news that might affect the American and global economies, including a couple of U.S. Treasury auctions of short-term bills later this morning (ET). Those aside, there is little on the economic calendar scheduled for today. American politics were likely behind much of last week’s fall in mortgage rates, and there could still be some reaction to the president’s firing of Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, on Friday afternoon. Any new controversies affecting the White House could also have an effect, as markets perceive such dramas as having the potential to distract the administration from its pro-business agenda.
Average rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages inched down on Friday, setting yet another new low for 2017. What happens next will depend on whether relevant news becomes more or less positive in coming hours and days. Absent other factors, good news tends to push mortgage rates up, while bad news usually pulls them down. However, that simple correlation is far from rigid, at least over the short term.
Some experts might urge you to lock your rate the next time a significant rise looks likely, particularly if you need to lock anyway within the next few weeks. Others might suggest you continue to float, providing you have time to ride out the coming (near-inevitable) ups and downs. But neither group has a crystal ball and there remains a real possibility of volatility. So, either way, you are taking a chance. Only you can decide on the level of risk with which you are comfortable.
LendingTree makes getting a mortgage easy! Below are the steps to take to make your mortgage process as seamless as possible:
Mortgage rates can vary a lot between lenders on any given day. So, if you only get one mortgage quote, you won’t have any idea if there’s a better deal out there. That’s why the best way to get a mortgage rate it to request quotes from multiple lenders and compare interest rates, loan terms and closing costs. It puts you on in charge and keeps the banks competing to get you the best rate possible. Remember, even .1 percent can amount to thousands of dollars over the course of a loan. Make sure you shop around!
